When you start a new business, there is always a flurry of activity. Our business in 1988 was just like that.
We rushed and worked, toiled and stressed until the doors were opened. And then we waited.
Yes, once and a while a customer would come in.
And a couple hours later another.
Vicki held the counter up during the day, and Tom sat on it at night.
Marie and Rachael took to dusting the shelves. It was slow.
I dropped flyers on cars. I came back and played guitar in the office.
We had ads on the radio. I sat in the office and wrote letters to my friends in Ireland.
We put out flyers in the mail. I came back and read a good book.
We placed advertisements in The Citizen. (Google AdWords? Facebook? What was that? There was no internet in those days!).
I came back to the office and waited for something to happen.
Eventually the customers came to try us out, we smothered them with value and kindness. Some came back and brought their friends, and their friends brought their friends, and so on. We got busy.
Starting a business, is hard work. But perhaps the hardest thing of all is the waiting.
Build it and they will come, they say. But really?
Customers don't often just stumble upon us. We build our mousetrap to attract the customers, but we have the wrong bait.
Or perhaps the wrong location, or the wrong message, wrong timing, wrong... you get it, a lot of things can go wrong.
Without proper research, planning, strategy, and a good dose of patience, a business can end up failing. It's not so much the lack of funding that "business experts" always talk about. It's the fact that we lack paying customers and can't get them fast enough.
That's why we need the funding, to hold us over until people find us!
So, what do we do in slow times? Every business has them. Perhaps it's the start up phase, or the off season, or a downturn in the economy, or a shift in demand.
The first thing not to do is panic! Unless of course you have a family to feed, or a mortgage to pay, or employees to satisfy, or a bank manager calling you.
They all demand action.
Quiet times give us important time to reflect. If you are like me, you will get out your guitar and put your feet up on the desk, wait for a customer to call, and smother them with kindness when they show up.
The reality is that this quiet time is time we need for planning.
Planning for the busy time and planning on how to get busy.
We need to re-evaluate our business model.
Does it work for us and our customers?
Are we bringing value to the market? To our stakeholders?
We need to ask questions: "Why is it that we are not getting a response? What needs to change? Is our message right? Are there better ways to communicate? Can we expand into different geographic territories, lines, products or services?"
When we are waiting for something to happen in our business, in our lives, time can seem to go slow. But there is a purpose to the seasons.
We can't cut the grass when the snow is still melting, but we can sharpen the blade on our lawnmower.
Perhaps we can't ride our bike but we can tune it up for riding season.
Perhaps we can't serve our customers, but we can be ready for them, and when they come, we can smother them with kindness and value so that they tell their friends, and their friends will bring more friends, and so on until we are busy.
You can only serve one customer at a time, so make sure that each and every customer you and your employees serve is that special one. Perhaps it will be the one who will be the cornerstone of a thriving, profitable business.
Be present and be profitable by using your waiting time wisely.
Dave Fuller, MBA, is an author and a certified professional business coach waiting for you to email him so that he can smother you in value and help you find more customers.
You can email him at: [email protected].
